Archive for July 2011

It’s official: the Australian carbon tax plan is nothing more than a grubby money grab — and a particularly nasty one at that!

The draft legislation for the tax – all 340 pages of it – strips away any pretence that this is about ‘clean energy’, saving the environment for our grandchildren; reducing pollution; or preserving the Great Barrier Reef.

There’s nothing even remotely noble about this. The suggestions of wanting to improve our world were never more than barefaced lies — and now it’s proven for all to see.

The tax and its even more reckless offspring, a trading scheme, are nothing more than the next stage in tacky wealth redistribution – political garbage from faceless Canberra-centric bureaucrats and politicians who couldn’t hold a real job.

It’s all about taking more money out of your pocket – and redistributing it to Labor groupies. Fullstop. Nothing more. And the arrogance is breathtaking. If you don’t like this type of amateur social engineering, then there are McCarthy-era punitive measures to ram it down your throat – including the use of constitutional powers to force States to comply.

The sums are, of course, rubbery (the draft legislation is not even original – just a cut and paste job from a failed American experiment)

But the impact on regional areas, household costs, levels of poverty, and all our jobs will be nothing short of horrrendous. ‘Clean energy’ is code for you losing your job and paying more and more for everything you buy – until you can’t afford to buy it any more.

Farmers will be ripped off big time by the trading scheme, truckies may as well go bankrupt now, food, water and electricity costs will hit our wallets hard, and some of Australia’s most successful industries, mining, manufacturing, aluminium and power will be forced to retrench and retrench workers, while money pours overseas to dodgy carbon traders.

But, as in England, the most damaging aspect of this junk public policy will be hardship arising from increasing costs of household heating, cooling, groceries, clothing, cars, car running costs etc etc etc. And you will pay this — and keep on paying year after year, long after the government’s 30 pieces of silver (they call it ‘compensation’) is gone.

This is the most divisive thing ever done by an Australian government and it will tear the country in two for a generation or more.

Faith in science will never again be the same, feelings toward the United Nations and green issues will be harmed and a highly politicised public service will be a prime target.

And, from here on, every utterance this government makes, every slip-up, every adverse economic figure, every opinion poll, every unemployment statistic, every stock market drop, every investment withdrawal, every hurdle in developing renewable energy, will be seized on, publicised, promoted, spread like wildfire – until this government and its supporters are consigned to history.

Bring it on you shonks. Just don’t try to say that it has anything to do with the environment. Because this scum legislation has nothing to do with being noble and caring!

Green groups and Australia’s Federal Government regularly point to science to support their views in the carbon dioxide debate.

Yet, Greenpeace – one of the biggest Green lobby groups of them all – doesn’t seem to practice what it preaches.

Recently, a group of Greenpeace members broke into a government research station at Canberra and destroyed a trial plot of genetically modified wheat.

In doing so, they destroyed their own credibility as environmentalists and clearly demonstrated a nasty underbelly of the green movement. These so-called activists apparently reject the science of food modification, yet attack anyone who dares question the science about carbon dioxide.

It would seem to be a long way from the ‘caring-for-the-world’, ‘whale-loving’ and ‘tree-hugging’ image that the green lobby has painted for itself.

While the claims and counter-claims about whether carbon dioxide has any impact on our climate are widely questioned, the value of genetically modified food seems broadly accepted – by everyone except radical greens. And, how can that value be clarified one way or the other if crops are destroyed before they can be tested.

So, the next time that Greenpeace comments on some serious issue, think back to the Canberra stunt – and consider the organisation’s views in that light.

Ian Roberts

This blog is penned by Australian social media advisor, writer, journalist and researcher, Ian Roberts. The blog centres on trends in social media development, life in general, football and the Newcastle United Jets FC, a passion Ian shares with beautiful wife, Suzanne.